Nikkei Average Holds Yearly Advance at 8%, Recruit Buys Dutch Rival

Hiruki Nakamura
22 Dec, 2015
New York City

The Nikkei 225 average closed marginally lower, while the Topix index edged higher in a lacklustre trading session ahead of a national holiday. McDonald reportedly plans to sell up to 33% stake in its Japanese unit. Recruit agreed to acquire Dutch rival USG People for

[R]4:30 PM Tokyo – The Nikkei 225 average closed marginally lower, while the Topix index edged higher in a lacklustre trading session ahead of a national holiday. McDonald reportedly plans to sell up to 33% stake in its Japanese unit. Recruit agreed to acquire Dutch rival USG People for €1.42 billion.[/R]

The stock market in Tokyo were little changed and trading remained subdued ahead of the national holiday on Wednesday.

Investors remained cautious amid low oil prices and uncertainty about the global economy.

While Christmas is not a public holiday in Japan, markets will remain closed on Wednesday to observe the emperor''s birthday.

Stocks of export-oriented companies were mixed with Toyota up 0.7%, Honda Motor down 0.3%, and Panasonic decreased 0.7%.

On the corporate front, McDonald plans to sell up to 33% stake in its Japanese unit for 100 billion yen and Recruit agreed to acquire smaller rival USG People for about 188.5 billion yen.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 29.32 or 0.2% to 18,886.70 and the broader Topix index added 2.32 to 1,533.60.

The yen edged down against the dollar to 121.22.

Stocks in Review

Fancl Corporation slipped 0.5% to 1,678 yen despite total sales in November soared 13% from a year ago to 8.93 billion yen.

The cosmetics and nutritional supplements maker said sales in the cosmetics segment surged 62.3% to 5.56 billion yen, while sales of nutritional supplements jumped 29.5% to 2.63 billion yen from a year ago.

Kirin Holdings Co Ltd declined 5.8% to 1,669 yen after the alcoholic beverages and soft drinks maker forecasted a net loss for the year ending in December of about 114 billion yen, the first loss of the company since going public in 1949.

The company projected impairment loss of 141.2 billion yen on the account of write down the goodwill linked to its struggling Brazilian unit.

McDonald''s Holdings Co (Japan) Ltd tumbled 7.9% to 2,712 yen on news reports that the U.S. fast food chain plans to sell 15% to 33% of its stake in Japan for about 100 billion yen.

The company hasn’t confirmed the news.

Recruit Holdings Co Ltd rose 0.1% to 3,620 yen after the staffing services provider agreed to acquire Dutch rival USG People NV for about 1.42 billion euros.

The company expects total acquisition cost of 188.5 billion yen, including advisory fees of about 1.2 billion yen.